Not Your Momma's Breakfast Club
by shooting-stetsons
Summary: Tony Stark is seventeen, and brilliant, a smartass, and completely alone. But not for long. It's a High School!AU. Rated M for excessive cussing and triggering content such as child abuse, mentions of self-harm and suicide, and minor character death.
1. Tony

**And so we're back again! Hello, new readers and old! Now the title might be misleading, so please know that this story is in no way affiliated with The Babysitter's Club, other than the fact that it is also for the Avengers fandom. **

**Also I intended for this to be a lot less Tony-centric, but hey, what can you do, right? It's Tony, he sort of jumps around screaming "PAY ATTENTION TO ME" even when he's in your head. ...and that sounds bad. ANYWAY, ONWARDS. Thanks for putting up with me, everyone.  
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Tony was the one who'd started the whole mess, really. Obviously. Though it wasn't that much of a surprise, because Tony Stark was seventeen and completely brilliant and tended to start most of the school's messes. What could he help if he had a big-as-all-hell house that just cried to be filled up like a whore on a Sunday, a wine cellar begging to be raided, and a sound system falling into serious neglect? It wasn't like he was about to let his house go to the wayside, and it _definitely _wasn't his fault that some stupid drunk girl fell off the balcony and broke her leg in the pool. Seriously, was he supposed to have his eye on everyone to pass through the house irresponsibly? Well, the principal seemed to think he was, anyway.

"Tutoring?" echoed Tony incredulously from across Principal Fury's desk. Actually he was across the small office from the principal, in a swively-chair pressed against the lip of the sofa rather than the stiff-backed chair across from the principal.

"Not tutoring," corrected the frankly terrifying man, leaning forward to glare at Tony through his one good eye. Even if there was a thinly-veiled derision between the two, they also compromised on the little things. Tony showed up when called to Fury's office, and Fury allowed him to steal the receptionist's swiveling chair to sulk in. "Mentoring."

No one exactly knew how Fury had lost his eye, but it was a commonly-speculated topic across campus on almost a daily basis. There were rumors, obviously, come on, it was high school, but some of the stuff cooked up was just _weird_, even by the Dungeons and Dragons nerds' standards. Some said Fury was an ex-marine who became a teacher after an octopus sucked out his eyeball (one of the more believable ones), while others said that Fury had been some sort of sky pirate, and secretly had x-ray vision behind that eyepatch that could see through anything (seriously? Not even a normal pirate, a _sky pirate?_). Rumors were what Shield County High did best, and they spread like wildfire. Thanks to the internet, even people halfway across the country had heard of Nick Fury the sky pirate; he was something like a meme within a few weeks.

Fury slid a glossy photograph dramatically across the desk toward Tony. He had to lean forward and slide it off the edge of the desk to look at it. A boy, dark curly hair and dark eyes, skinny, short, frowning, so what? "This is Bruce Banner," Fury began with the air of a tragic storyteller.

"Is this gonna make me cry, sir?"

He shut up when Fury's exposed eye glared again. Did that thing have a neutral setting or laser or something? "Bruce just came into the city from Farmington, New Mexico, and will be starting school with us tomorrow. He's been bouncing around foster homes for nine years and needs someone to talk to, do homework with, anything to remind him there are still good people in the world. Think you can handle the job?" he asked.

Leaning back in his chair, away from Fury and the photograph of some kid he was supposed to baby around school like he was made of glass, Tony crossed his arms and scowled, "I'm not a role model. You know that, sir."

"I'm not asking you to be one, Stark."

"Then why not get Coulson to do it? He's pretty, what's the word..." he fluttered his hands through the air, "_eager_."

"Because Coulson is not the one who needs to learn a lesson, or two, or _ten_, about responsibility!" the principal snapped, and Tony clammed up the attitude again. There were only two men in the world who could actually make Tony Stark shut the hell up, and the one currently not sitting four feet away was his father. "This boy, Bruce Banner, was sent here of all places for a reason, and that isn't because the foster home was next in the rotation. He is of genius-level intellect, but the State doesn't want him taking college classes until they know he's no longer a danger to himself. He needs someone who can keep up with him, and you're the only other student _in the goddamn nation _who can do that."

His good eye briefly closed as he, too, leaned back in his chair before setting Tony with a softer look. "I requested he come here instead of being sent to a group home, with the promises that he could be reintegrated into society. I am not authorized to tell you what happened at his last foster home, Stark, but this brilliant, kind, seriously underestimated young man is on the verge of becoming a flight risk. We need to make sure that doesn't happen, or this school will be in serious trouble. Understood?"

Tony dug his toes into the carpet and set to swiveling infinitesimally back and forth as he glared at the principal. Whatever crackpot had come up with the concept of a chair that swivels must have been thinking of teenagers, if how conductive they were to slouching was any factor in it. And if young Tony Stark were anything but brilliant, it was a champion sloucher. Kirk Cobain would have wept if ever he had witnessed half such an impressive display of teen angst. He understood perfectly what Fury wanted from him. Fury wanted Tony to become friends with some kid who'd very likely been shanked or raped by his foster dad, learn the True Meaning of Friendship through late-night tearful confessions of his own abuse, and they would ride out of high school into the collegiate sunset holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Fat chance, old man.

"Fine," he scowled at last. "But don't expect me to be a model citizen just because I've got Little Orphan Annie under my wing."

The eyepatch twitched slightly with Fury's heavily put-upon sigh. "I wouldn't dream of it, Stark. Now get the hell out of my office." He flicked his massive wrist and Tony left in one fluid slouching motion, dragging the swively-chair back out to the receptionist's desk from where he'd borrowed it. Then he retrieved his jacket from one of the lobby chairs and headed for the door. It had been a taxing morning, he deserved the half-day off to prepare for his extremely important mentoring duties.

"Stark!" an annoyingly authoritative voice barked from down the hallway. Great. Coulson. "Do you have a note permitting you to leave early?"

If it were possible to roll one's eyes all the way back into one's head and get a glimpse of the thought _Jesus fuck you are so annoying _skittering across the brain, Tony probably would have achieved it. With his face tilted up to the ceiling Tony spun a slow circle to face stupid-ass Coulson, the only kid in Shield County who took his Hall Monitor duties so seriously he may as well have come to school wearing a cape and undies on the outside of his pants. "No, Coulson, I don't. Gonna do something about it?" he retorted.

The tall weedy boy with more pimples than a pizza stomped forward with as much self-righteous authority as he could muster when seemingly in constant surprise of his own lanky limbs. "I ought to Tase you into the linoleum one of these days," he attempted to growl with a deep furrow between his bushy eyebrows.

"You're not allowed to have weapons on school grounds, Coulson. It's in the handbook, don't you have it memorized?"

"I would risk expulsion just to see you flopping like a trout, Stark."

They stared at each other for a few long moments. Usually Tony could pay off any of the other monitors to keep things hush-hush, but Coulson refused to be bribed. He was too honorable or stupid to do that. Well, there was only one thing for it, then. Time to take one for the team. Tony feinted to the left and darted away down the hall while the taller boy scrambled to catch him. What could only be described as the laughter of the truly maniacal teenager set on rebellion echoed back through the front doors at the enraged hall monitor, thick-rimmed spectacles falling lopsided on his nose as he glowered after Tony.

The house was empty, but that wasn't surprising. Obie came by, after five hours of video games, with New York pizza, though, and that was always a good surprise. "Where are they this time?" he asked with a mouthful of mozzarella cheese.

"A weapons conference in Ohio. Mom's the DD, of course," supplied Obie as though he were granting Tony a huge favor with letting him know that, once again, Mom would be taking responsibility for his drunken slob of a father. Here's to hoping he wouldn't be caught climbing out of another woman's car when it was time to go again. _That _had been a hellish week.

Tony switched on the stereo system and dropped onto the sofa to eat the rest of his pizza; AC/DC blasted around the room so loud that Obie flinched and glowered fondly at him. Only Obie could glower _fondly_. It was probably a trait of all those who ever put up with the generations of Stark men. Though, of course, if anyone would ask his father, he would snort and insist that Tony was no man, and certainly not a Stark man of any worthy calibre.

Whatever. Old news.

"Got any homework, kiddo?"

"Fuck all if I know."

"Tony..."

He rolled his eyes. "Right, right, watch my language, whatever you say, Dad."

It was only a joke, Tony had called Obie Dad a million times before, but they both looked down at their feet for a long, quiet moment. Before anything else could be said, Tony got up and shut himself in his room until he heard Obie leave. It was his godfather's job to make sure Tony had dinner on the nights Mom and Dad were away, and he had done his job. Tony huffed a sigh against his bedroom door and asked Jarvis to shut out the lights, "But keep the music."

The housekeeper sighed over the intercom but only said, "Of course, young master," in the long-suffering dry wit that was so very _Jarvis _of him, before the lights in his room dimmed to a comfortable level. The music blared on.

For another few hours, Tony sat at his workbench and worked on DUMMY - his first fully-functional robot, complete with Artificial Intelligence and everything. Maybe if he did something right, got some press, a few honors from the city, Dad would stay home for a few days and actually take notice. Mostly, though, Tony wanted DUMMY for himself, a reminder that he was smarter than Dad thought, a helper with more projects, even someone to talk to if the AI was good enough. One robot would help build another robot would help develop a more advanced AI program and soon enough Tony would be king of the world. He probably wouldn't even need Dad's company, especially not if his AI became hyper-cognitive and took over the world. Then he'd have an in with the new overlord. It was gonna be awesome.

He fell asleep at four in the morning, AC/DC blasting, hunched over his workbench with DUMMY twitching under his cheek. Jarvis shut down the stereo and put a blanket over him as soon as it was safe, smoothly exchanging the robot arm with a pillow, before gently ruffling Tony's hair and turning in for the night as well. What a sweet boy. Such a pity.


	2. Bruce

Jesus, Banner had looked like a shrimp in the photo Fury showed him yesterday, but even in person he was smaller than he seemed. It wasn't that he was all that _short_, almost the same height as Tony actually, but there was something almost wild about him, something hunted, something that suggested he could curl up and disappear at a moment's notice if the occasion arose, and it made him seem so goddamn _tiny_. He had a weird way of ducking his head, light reflecting off his wire-rimmed glasses, dark curls obscuring much of his face, that it made him almost completely unremarkable. If they hadn't been two feet away from one another in the office, Tony might not have noticed him at all.

Banner's broad, calloused hands opened and closed convulsively at his front as he blinked rapidly at the floor. Fury was watching them with the same general disapproving look he always had on his face, though it was a little softer when he spoke to Bruce. Why was he so much nicer to orphans? Tony could be an orphan for all he saw his parents, but did he get special treatment? "You boys can sit in here a while and get acquainted, exchange phone numbers or whatever it is kids do these days, but _try _to make it to first period," he glared with emphasis toward Tony and stomped out.

"He's always like that, don't take it seriously; he's actually being really nice today," he told Banner, who looked up with a nervous swallow. Tony slapped him on the back. "Okay, kid, first things first, right?"

Nodding, Banner reached into the pocket of his worn jeans and pulled out a cheap brick of a cell phone. "I guess we could...?" he offered, biting his lip.

Tony twitched an eyebrow. "Yeah, I'm thinking not." The scruffy boy's face fell. When he moved to replace the phone in his pocket his sleeve rolled up; across the thin skin of his wrist were old scars. Tony's mouth went unexpectedly dry. "R...ight now! Not right now. Right _now_, we're getting breakfast. Hungry?"

Banner's eyes widened imperceptibly. "Oh! No, no, that's okay, I-I had some cereal at Mrs. Linwood's. Besides, first period starts soon, and I don't have..." He trailed off and smiled crookedly, a withering, self-deprecating thing that made Tony simultaneously respect and be annoyed with him. No one should think they had to hide who they were, sometimes people just had to _strut_.

Which was exactly why he clamped a hand around the little guy's elbow and started pulling him from the building. "Oh, come on! It's nothing five-star, but I'm hungry and I'm your mentor. From this moment on, you have to do what I say, and I say _McDonald's_." He winked at Pepper Potts, another hall monitor who only just let him slide through with a disapproving look because they sometimes made out behind the bleachers during football practice - gotta love a redheaded cheerleader - then hustled out to his car.

"This is yours?" Banner asked, staring bug-eyed at the car. "It looks really new."

"Actually it's next year's model," shrugged Tony, manhandling Banner's backpack (seriously, who the hell carried backpacks on their first day? He didn't even have books yet!) into the Corvette's back seat. "Now get in, Hot Legs, I'm _hungry!_"

Banner climbed bemusedly into the passenger seat, giving Tony an unfamiliar look when he deigned to strap in. "Isn't it law that you have to put on your belt?" he asked, shrinking slightly against the car door when Tony rounded on him.

"What, seriously?" The kid looked pointedly out the window, and Tony's dash started binging. The seatbelt warning light flashed on like some little luminescent accusation, and Tony sighed. "Fine, whatever, if it helps you sleep at night." He yanked on the belt and drove the two miles to McDonald's at breakneck speed just to be contrary, smirking when Banner squirmed. The 'vette was controlled like warm putty in his hands, especially since he'd put together and installed the new steering column.

For a few seconds he conflicted over drive-thru or walking in, then considered delicious queso sauce getting all over his leather interior and parked. Banner half-reached for his backpack, unbuckled his seatbelt, then arched back to grab the pack and scurried in after Tony, apparently done arguing against him, thank god. He flung open the doors and sashayed to the counter with his usual finesse, hindered only slightly by some old chubby man taking his sweet time ordering an apple pie.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" the girl behind the counter glowered. Emily went to the local community college and was endlessly bitter that culinary school had fallen through, going to such lengths as to tell anyone who asked 'how's life?' all about it.

He grinned disarmingly. "It's a bank holiday. You probably forgot since this place is open all year. Sorry, are _you _McDonald?" Waiting until after she'd quelled the urge to kill him, he smirked over his shoulder at Bruce, who was studiously examining the RedBox with a great deal of pink flushing under his collar. "Two Number Fours, extra hashbrowns, extra hot sauce, and a coffee, big coffee, like the biggest coffee you have- do you have like a coffee bucket?"

His usual order was dropped unceremoniously onto the counter in front of him by the time he'd finished asking. "Get out," said Emily in way of goodbye. Just to annoy her, Tony took the tray and kicked Banner in the back of the legs until he followed him to the biggest table in the dining room. Tony slid two of the four burritos and two of the hashbrowns down the table at Banner, who quirked an eyebrow but peeled open the wrappers.

"This is vegan, right?"

Tony almost swallowed his coffee cup before he looked up at Banner - and saw one corner of his mouth twitching up into a semblance of a smirk. "Banner, are you _joking?_"

"I make jokes," smiled Banner shyly, staring down at his food, "sometimes."

A grin crept its way across Tony's face.

"So Fury says you're some kind of genius," he brought up when they were strolling back into school fifteen minutes after first period started. Well, Tony was strolling, Bruce was shuffling nervously.

Banner, who seemed to have been quietly enjoying his first day, bit his lip and clammed up again. "I-I mean, I'm nothing special, I've just been going off some of my dad's notes and...expanding on them, I guess..." he mumbled, hugging his backpack to his front like a Kindergartener alone on the playground. From beneath long, thick lashes, he added, "I could show you at lunch, if you're interested. It's nothing spectacular..."

Slapping Banner on the back hard enough to elicit a squeak, Tony reached into the smaller boy's back pocket and pulled out his schedule. Ignoring his halfhearted "Hey!" of protest, he scanned the list. "You've got English with Hill first, she's really hot but she'll give you detention if she catches you staring at her knockers. Then you've got Calculus, World History, Chemistr-oh, shit, sweet, we have Chem together. That means we both have B lunch (hell yeah, best one) and study hall. Then I have my Physics class and you have PE, ouch, sorry man."

"I don't mind PE."

"Well, okay, Crazy. Have fun, smile pretty for the class, see you in Chem."

Before he could even fully turn away Banner's hand was on his arm. "Wait! I-I don't know where Hill's class is, and I'm already late; won't she be mad?" he asked nervously.

Tony sighed. "Alright, come on, Princess Peach, let's get you to your castle. Hill's pretty easy in the first few days of school, so as long as you tell her it's your first day and you got hopelessly lost - especially with that cute little puppy face of yours - she shouldn't be too hard on you. Man, I _wish _she'd go hard on me..." he trailed off, staring down the hall toward Hill's room, until he heard Banner snicker beside him. "Our lockers are a good meeting spot between my second period and yours, so I'll show you where that is when the time comes, okay? Locker 218, don't get lost, Sweet-Cheeks." For good measure he slapped Banner on the ass, relishing the surprised squeak and jump, before pushing him into his classroom.

During PoliSci, doodling in his notebook as usual, Tony suddenly found himself smiling. The kid didn't talk much at all, and he obviously had some deep-seated issues, but Banner seemed alright. With enough dedication and hard work that he certainly didn't apply to his schoolwork, Tony could probably have the little guy strutting through the halls by the end of the month.

He looked at Banner's notebook during lunch as promised, cheeseburger forgotten halfway to his mouth as he openly gaped at the most goddamn beautiful - and even a little bit _arousing_- equations he'd ever seen. "Never thought a notebook could make me hot before," he muttered.

Across the table, Banner gave a choked laugh around his peanut butter sandwich. "Are you serious?" he asked when it appeared that Tony wasn't joining in.

He looked up at the little guy with the most serious look he could muster. A blush rocketed up the other boy's face so fast and so bright that he could have signaled an airplane with that thing. "What does this mean, this spiral thing you have going on here?" Tony asked to avoid an awkward conversation.

Banner leaned forward to see what he was pointing at, then frowned. "It was supposed to be a model for a new kind of reactor - you know, to replace the nuclear ones? My dad did some research, and...well anyway - but I can't seem to make it work. It needs three dimensions or-or something more that I just don't..." He made a soft, frustrated noise and ran his hands through his unruly hair.

"Can I give it a shot?"

"What, really?" asked Banner, then squirmed away when Tony swiped a hand at his head. Okay, a little too touchy too soon, but at least Banner wasn't seizing up in terror or anything. "I guess if you wanted to, and made your own copies, that would be okay." Pretty normal, well-balanced guy, despite what Fury said about being a flight-risk. He was brilliant, a good listener, a sounding board who actually seemed likely to reply and bounce ideas back, and really just _adorable_. Yep. Tony was keeping this one.

After school, Tony smoked a cigarette against the side of his car and watched the throng for Bruce. PE and Physics were about as far apart as two classes could get, so Tony figured he could just wait and offer the little guy a ride home, being his mentor and all, maybe cop a feel at a sudden stop light (excluding the fact that there were no stop lights in Shield County).

His attention was drawn to the other side of the parking lot, near the soccer fields, by a sudden swell of shouting, and cold dread settled over him when he saw Banner's purple backpack being tossed around by some of the big assholes on the wrestling team. "Oh, _hell _no," he growled, flicking his cig to the pavement before storming across the lot toward them. No one fucked with Tony's stuff, not if he had anything to say about it, and he'd very clearly claimed-

With a shout almost like a roar, skinny little Bruce Banner vaulted fucking Wade Wilson over his head and into the security fence dividing the soccer fields and parking lot. The metal clanged, and the wrestlers stopped laughing. "_Give it back!_" demanded Banner, hardly out of breath even after _throwing_ a guy twice his size. When the wrestlers only stared, backpack hidden behind them, Banner took a step. That was it, just one step forward toward the sweaty jocks who should have been able to beat him to a pulp with a flick of their meaty wrists, and they actually took a step back. They _never_ took a step back. "Give me my backpack. _Now._"

They returned his backpack. Tony grinned as Bruce hugged it possessively to his middle and stalked through the mob. "Bruce! Over here!" he called, waving an arm to get the little guy's - okay, big guy, _very _big guy when he wanted to be - attention. Bruce blinked, a bit dazed, and followed him to the Corvette like a puppet on strings the wrong length. "I've never seen a wrestler pee himself before."

"Shut up," growled Bruce, looking everywhere but at Tony, still hugging his pack like a dork. There was still a defensive hunch to his shoulders, but the set of his mouth and drooping eyes made him look exhausted and sad. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Before he could turn away Tony reached for his arm- and almost got his own torn off when Bruce lashed out, terror flashing somewhere further away then the present in his eyes. Tony put both hands up. "I just wanted to offer you a ride," he calmly explained, though his heart was pounding.

Bruce's face fell even further. No. That wasn't what Tony wanted. "I'm sorry," he said, voice crackling, and turned away, presumably to walk home.

"I still wanna give you a ride, Banner!"

Turning with a sickening gleam of hope in eyes, Bruce asked, "Really?" His hands flexed around the straps of his backpack, which was now slightly dusty but no worse for wear.

"Get in the goddamn car, Bruce."

Yes, his arm kind of hurt and would bruise, and yes, he'd been a little scared for a second, but he'd known ahead of time that Bruce had issues. The whole point of this stupid mentor thing was to keep Bruce from going postal and swallowing a bullet. And Tony found himself much less inclined to sit back and watch that happen than he'd been the day before.

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**Whoever guesses the character featuring in the next chapter will get a sneak preview in their inbox!**


	3. Thor

In the three weeks since Bruce was moved to Shield County he'd spent almost every afternoon at Tony's house. They would first do their homework at Bruce's urging, then immediately run upstairs to work on DUMMY or, on one memorable occasion, sneak down to Howard's workshop in the basement. Bruce had been stunned speechless by the holographic displays and millimeters-thin tablets that shouldn't have existed for at least another five years.

"Yeah, Dad likes to keep all the good toys for himself and watch the monkeys at Apple scramble to catch up," smirked Tony, the blue glow from the holograms giving him an otherworldly look, and Bruce fell a little bit in love. Then there were a series of thumps upstairs and with a gesture the lights were back up. "Fuck, fuck, Mom and Dad are home early, shit, fuck, we gotta get out of Dad's lab!"

They made it to the top of the stairs just as his parents came inside. Mom made polite conversation and said it was _so nice to meet you, Bruce, Tony's told me all about you _(Lie, or just embarrassment at having not been around long enough for Tony to tell her he made a friend. Either way it made Bruce smile, so Tony guessed that a lie in this case was okay); Dad reeked of booze and vanished into his shop without a word. Whatever. Bruce stayed for dinner that night, because Mom was the best cook in the world and Tony wasn't about to let the chance go to waste.

Every Friday, Tony stayed after school to watch the cheerleaders and football team practice. Only every once in a while did the cheerleaders' break coincide with something exciting happening on the field, and that was when Pepper slipped away from the girls to have fun with Tony behind the bleachers. Lately he had been wondering if he ought to consider laying off a little bit, maybe try making a move on Banner, but then on the fifth Thursday since he'd been moved to Shield County, Bruce came running to Tony's side after school, flushed with delight, and announced, "Tony, I love her, you need to help me!"

"Who?" asked Tony with an eyebrow raised, and Bruce subtly nodded at a girl halfway across the lot. She was sitting on the sidewalk doing math homework in the last precious rays of warm sunlight before winter rolled over and smothered them all in her enormous frosty breasts, glasses perched on the edge of her nose and dark hair tied back. Tony groaned. "Jesus, Banner, you really don't go halvesies on these things, do you?"

Still grinning like a dope, Bruce shrugged. "I don't know! She leaned over in Calculus and asked what the date was, and I said 'It's October fourth' and she said 'Thanks' and smiled at me like- Wow! She's the prettiest girl I've ever seen in my whole-_mmpf._"

Tony had put his hand over Bruce's mouth to end the gushing monologue. "First of all, it's 'hot'. Say she's 'hot', you're not twelve years old anymore, you're a grown fucking man. And dude, you've got a boner for _Betty Ross_," he told him sternly. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Fucking idiot," and smiled winningly. "Bruce, if there ever were a girl in this school who was completely unattainable, it's Betty Ross. Her dad's the football coach, and he doesn't want _anyone _touching his daughter, let alone losers like they probably think you are even though I think you're adorable. Even if he can't beat your ass off her himself, he's got an army of thugs wrapped around his ham-hock who would gladly do it for him. Seriously, I tried to tap that last year, thought they were gonna rip my heart out of my chest like some tacky Kung Fu movie."

Bruce looked heartbroken. Dammit. Tony sighed and crumbled within seconds. "Oh my god, _fine_, I might know a guy. But don't get your hopes up!"

The guy he had in mind was Thor Odinson, the biggest and burliest muscle head on the football team, but also probably the biggest softie on the planet. He'd started off a stupid asshole just like the rest of them until he got a girlfriend in sophomore year, Jane Foster, and she used the Power of Love to make him realize just how much of an asshole he was. It wasn't fair, a guy being that built and being genuinely nice. Yeah, he was a senior, and yeah, he was a jock headed for ivy league football, but he was the _king _jock and built like a god. The other idiots did exactly what he said, and he used that power to stop them ganging up on smaller kids whenever he saw it happen - unless a particular kid they targeted had fucked with his little brother, Loki (what was with the names in that family?), then it was a whole different story filled with blood and regret.

Basically, if Bruce was gonna have any sort of chance with Betty, he would need that guy on his side for protection. It couldn't be that tough, since Thor was sort of dumber than a sack of rocks in all the spheres of academia required to pass high school. He knew his literature, that was for sure, knew all the sappy poetry cliches like What it Really Means to Live and, of course, the Power of Love, but he was a little fixated on classic lit to the point where he talked like a Viking and obsessed over courtly love and other weird outdated shit like that. Tony had heard through the grapevine, though, that he was desperately looking for a Calculus tutor.

Thus, the study group began.

"It is not that I do not wish to learn, I simply do not grasp how understanding these confounded rules will be relevant to my life!" groused Thor as he erased yet another badly-executed equation.

Bruce leaned closer across the tiny library table with a look on his face so sincerely apologetic that Thor felt he had no choice but to wait and listen to what he had to say. "I know, man. No, really, I do. Math sucks, especially when it seems like there's no way it could apply to life at all. But you know what I did to help? My mom died when I was seven. I was afraid I would forget what she looked like, so I figured out an equation to slope the curve of her smile. I _made_ math apply to my life. Dude, I made math my _bitch_. And you can do it too." He grinned at Thor, but there was something dark and tense hovering at the edges of it, like he would rather just have his mom back.

"That is the most beautiful use for this foul study I have ever heard, Banner," replied Thor, big blue eyes actually shining with a hint of unshed tears.

From the head of the table, to Bruce's right and Thor's left, Tony frowned. He didn't exactly like the feeling of something big and heavy stomping on his sternum, thanks. "You really did that?"

He did that thing again, that thing where he sort of shrank in on himself, hiding behind his floppy bangs and thick eyelashes with that self-deprecating little smile that made Tony want to be sick. "Even if I did, I damn well wouldn't tell _you_, Stark."

Tony kicked him under the table and smirked when he had to dodge the Calc book turned flying projectile. Thor laughed loudly enough for the librarian to glare at them. "You are both most amusing," he whispered. "Come to my home this evening and my mother will prepare the most delicious meal you've seen all your lives long!"

The smaller boys looked at one another and shrugged. What did they have to lose? Well, except maybe one thing. "You're...still gonna pay me though, right?" asked Bruce, fingers twitching against the tabletop.

"Of course, my friend!"

"Then yeah, we'd love to." He reached across the table and shook Thor's meaty paw.

The big guy really wasn't kidding about it being a meal they'd never forget. Thor was a big enough eater, but his dad was just as much of a beefcake after years and years in the army (at such a high rank that he couldn't even fully disclose his title, holy shit). At least _his _eyepatch could be explained away. In comparison, despite being a whopping 6'2", Loki looked positively tiny compared to them. Their mom made enough food to compete with Thanksgiving. Tony had celebrated the last four Thanksgivings having takeout in his room, so he was determined to savor it.

"Tony, how are your parents?" asked Mrs. Odinson as promptly as though she had counted down the seconds until it was appropriate to make polite conversation. "Your mother hasn't been to Rainbow Bridge Club in ages."

"They're fine," replied Tony mildly, having been raised to know just how to respond to that particular question. "Dad's keeping Mom busy helping out with the company, and since Stark Industries is expanding more than ever, they've been traveling all over the country pitching ideas to important folks. I hear Malibu's beautiful this time of year." And then the conversation turned to weather and vacations, neatly deflected away from Stark Industries' more controversial aspects, just as Tony had been taught to do.

At Tony's side, Bruce was quiet as he fastidiously ate his ridiculously tiny portions, keeping his eyes down unless he was being spoken to. Under the table, he nudged Bruce's foot with his foot until he cracked a smile and looked up. Good. Tony didn't like it when Bruce got quiet; it made him think of the small dark spaces he'd seen on the little guy's wrist the day they'd met, and what it must have taken for Bruce to get so low. He still hadn't mentioned that he saw them; there was never exactly a good time to bring up that sort of thing.

"So, Bruce, what do your parents do?"

Tony felt himself stiffen, and looked out of the corner of his eye to see Bruce surprisingly at ease. "Oh, I live with Mrs. Linwood, ma'am," he politely replied. Everyone knew that Mrs. Linwood took in foster kids.

Mrs. Odinson's eyebrows twitched subtly up; she must have been really shocked. Her face was sort of Botox'd beyond all range of emotion. "Oh! I'm terribly sorry, dear, I didn't realize..."

He shook his head. "It's fine, ma'am. I don't mind." Then Bruce shut his eyes, a muscle twitching in his jaw, and very calmly opened them again to face Mrs. Odinson's inevitable questions, now that he had unintentionally given permission to ask. He quickly and calmly - far too calmly - explained, "I lost my mother when I was seven and my father when I was eight, but I assure you that I'm very well adjusted."

Thor's mom blinked at him, then smiled stiffly. "Well, that-...that's good to hear."

Across the table, Thor grinned through his mouthful of food at them. "Bruce is by far the most intelligent person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and one of the kindest as well. Homework that would take me hours to complete, Bruce can accomplish in minutes! It is truly remarkable."

"I can do that too," mumbled Loki from his mother's side. "I could be tutoring you, saving you money, and probably do a better job of it, but instead-"

"Don't be proud, Loki," Thor's father growled into his glass of wine, and Loki's eyes _dropped_. Dropped somewhere small, and dark, and fully separate from that night and that table and that dinner. Tony gritted his teeth and played idly with his fork. It wasn't his job to pick up strays or rejects, he wasn't going to do that. If Loki had issues he could deal. Tony didn't even know how to have more than one friend, and Thor was already elbowing his way in. It was the dopey grin, Tony couldn't help thinking of Lennie from _Of Mice and Men _whenever he saw that stupid look on Thor's fucking moonface.

The rest of dinner was pretty uneventful, thank god, and from then on Thor was a permanent fixture at their lunch table...and Betty Ross was a permanent fixture at Bruce's side. Turns out, she'd only asked Bruce for the date that day in Calc because she thought he was cute when he blushed, and he blushed every time people talked to him. If Bruce had only _asked_, Tony would have told him the same damn thing. But whatever. It was fine. Bruce was happy, Thor's grades were getting better. Everything was _fine_.

Just fucking _perfect_, in fact, because it didn't _matter_ that Mom came home without Dad last night, or that Jarvis was sick (not just sick, but _really sick_, and _fuck_ if that didn't cut like a knife to the sternum), or that Obie was going to jail for _plotting to kidnap and kill Tony_.

None of it fucking mattered at all.


	4. Steve

Yeah, surprise surprise, Tony was sent to counseling after all the shit with Dad and Obie went down, but fuck all if he cared. Well, okay, it wasn't just because of the Dad and Obie shit, but really what happened after that. After Obie was walked off in chains and Dad ran away for a three-week bender in Amsterdam, Mom was left to run the company on her own. And run she did. It was the longest Tony had gone without seeing either of his parents in years. He didn't bother going to school or answering the door when Bruce and Thor showed up - probably everything had been spelled out on the news by now, and Tony wasn't in the mood to deal with that. With Jarvis in the hospital and his parents and Obie (fuck, Obie, _why?_) scattered to the wind, there were even less people in the big, big house. But Tony didn't care, he just broke into the liquor cabinet (literally, he broke it, glass everywhere), opened a bottle of expensive vodka, and had himself a party of one.

School was not happy when they got wind of the police visiting Tony at home. They let him off extraordinarily easy considering, but they, along with everyone else in the nation, had seen the news. That, and he lied that Mom was asleep in another room and if they woke her up there would be hell to pay. Anyway, Fury was pissed at him, again, but Tony was used to Fury being pissed. What he wasn't used to was Fury looking at him with that stupid fucking eye not glaring at him, looking at him like he was _Bruce_, someone to be pitied and watched and checked for new scars. Tony wasn't going to need a babysitter, he wasn't _weak_, and he wasn't a flight risk.

Except sometimes, in the dark and the quiet of his big empty house at three in the morning, staring drunkenly across Dad's workshop at the hundreds of tools that could easily pull off a man's head with the wrong handling, Tony wondered if maybe he _was _all of those things.

So he went to fucking counseling. He slouched his way through the meeting with Mrs. Taylor, the counselor, went home and slept until school was over, then went back for the first of two fucking group counseling meetings a week. Bruce was there, why the hell was Bruce-? Oh. Right. Foster care. Duh. Tony hated that Bruce was so good at making people forget that. He didn't do it out of any desire for normalcy or acceptance, but because Bruce was always hiding. Hiding was a necessary skill for kids who were used to being slapped around when they looked at Daddy the wrong way. Yeah, Bruce finally fessed up about his dad being an alcoholic prick, and Tony wanted to taste the fucker's blood even if he was serving for 20 years, but that was beside the point. Not once had Bruce asked if Tony wanted to visit Mrs. Linwood's, even though the four other foster kids had friends over all the time. They were all in counseling, too.

Some guy from the art school downtown, a twetysomething-year-old named Steve Rogers who graduated a year or two before, was leading the group that day. He looked about twelve and puffed on an inhaler every few minutes to catch his breath when he wasn't even talking. "Okay guys, we're just drawing today to ease in some of the newcomers," he announced with a sideways glance at Tony. Puff. "We don't have to have a discussion, but if anyone wants to talk about something on their minds before we start, that's okay too."

No one said a word, staring down at their easels clustered in a circle. Bruce tried to meet Tony's eyes, but Tony was inspecting the pastel crayons with an acidic feeling burning a hole in the bottom of his stomach. It wasn't that anyone expected him to say anything, but it felt like they did. It felt like they were staring at him. Waiting.

"I had a dream about my mom last night," Bruce spoke up when it was clear that Steve was awkwardly about to set them to work. His face was red and he was playing with a paint brush between his hands, but he was still looking nervously at Tony. "We made pancakes. It was nice."

Smiling encouragingly, Steve waved Bruce along. "No dad in this one?" he asked.

Bruce shook his head. "No, Dad wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere. I-I felt safe, it was the best dream I've ever had."

Steve nodded. "Good, Bruce. That's really good. Anyone else want to share? No? Alright, let's get to work, then! Raise your hand if you have questions."

This was stupid. Stabbing holes through the paper with the tip of his pencil, Tony leaned on his elbow and sighed, annoyed. Everyone else was doing what they were told, one guy drawing cars on fire while a girl, another of Mrs. Linwood's, drew horses grazing in a meadow. Tony couldn't see what Bruce was drawing, but he was concentrating very hard. Probably his mom. Jesus that kid had issues with his mom. As they worked Steve walked around the easels, commenting and answering questions here and there. Puff, puff, so much talking, Stebe, maybe you should sit down, puff, puff, maybe you should sit in a plastic bubble where the nasty germs won't eat your translucent skin right off the bone, puff, puff, oh, look at Stebe, so smart and well-adjusted, puff, puff, so generous to spend his Wednesdays and Fridays watching losers draw out their feelings, puff, puff, you're such a good guy, Stebe, puff, puff, maybe you should take your fucking nice guy act somewhere no one will ever find you again, _puff, puff_...

"Tony?"

He shoved the pencil through the paper, then his fist, then his arm, then flipped the whole fucking easel because everything was so goddamn stupid and _why the fuck not?_ Girls were screaming as though it were the scandal of the century, boys were standing up, ready to neutralize any potential crazies, but Steve was just standing there, three inches too short and ninety pounds too slight, watching him, broken easel having missed him by centimeters and he hadn't even _flinched_.

"Do you want to talk in the hall, Tony?" he asked in a voice too calm and too big for a man with such a small, breakable body.

And Tony meant to be cool. His plan was to sail through the shit with a smile and fuck the haters (both figuratively and literally, depending on how hot they were), his plan was to be okay because that's who he was, he was the king of okay, and he meant to say, "No, I don't want to talk in the hall," like a normal fucking person but instead _screamed it at the top of his lungs_ and made the girl drawing horses cry. Well, fuck her (only figuratively, because _yikes_).

And Steve put a hand on his arm and took him out into the hall, and Tony totally freaked the fuck out. It wasn't funny or pretty or tragic like in the movies, he didn't punch the wall like a fucking man, or lean stoically against the lockers while letting a Single Manly Tear roll down his face, he sat on the floor with his back against the lockers and sobbed like a fucking toddler for four and a half minutes. Yeah, he kept fucking count so he could make up for it doing something _real_, something _useful_, later, so what? It was his fucking life, thanks very much. It had been a week and he was having a fucking meltdown in front of Boy Scouts of America getting his I-Helped-Losers-Fingerpaint Badge, but it wasn't like he could help the fact that one guy he'd grown up with was determined to work in his house until he died and and one guy he'd grown up with, one who'd changed his diapers and helped him built his first model car and taught him how to throw a baseball, had hired someone to kidnap him _that fucking night_, to paralyze him with one of Dad's weapons and kill him without asking so much as a ransom, just for the fucking joy of screwing over Howard fucking Stark once and for all.

Steve crouched on his haunches while Tony got it out of his system, calm as one of those stupid zen tapes people listened to while they did yoga. He didn't make Tony tell him anything, and he didn't presume he knew anything about Tony's life. He just waited until he was finished, and walked with him to the bathroom so he could wash the salt off his face. When they went back Tony walked in like nothing happened, and everyone else played along. They all had their easel-flipping days. His easel was set up again, if a little crookedly, and Tony squinted at the sight of something he hadn't done sitting on it. Just a ripped-off piece of paper with a scribbled pen drawing on it, a stick man standing in the shadow of an enormous man-shaped something. Tony turned it over.

_We all have our monsters. _  
_It sucks and it's hard and _  
_we never want other people _  
_to see, but sometimes they_  
_need to be let out._

_Come talk to me if you_  
_want._

_-B_

The bespectacled boy was staring rapt at his painting, frowning at the apparently overzealous use of too much green, going by the thumb-shaped smudge of it on the edge of Tony's note.

There was apparently supposed to be a rotation of volunteers coming in to do different things with the counseling group, but with midterms coming up most of the college kids were busy. Luckily for Steve, he could work on most of his projects while working at the high school, so he was around more often than before Tony joined up, and Tony found himself almost looking forward to going after a few weeks.

For a total dork, Steve was actually kind of cool, in his own way. He didn't make people talk if they didn't feel like it, even when everyone was supposed to take a turn. He still signed the assignments Tony did in group if he saw Tony looking at or giving away answers. He loved baseball and thought the Dodgers should go back to Brooklyn, and he liked board games and trivia and all the boring things sickly kids were stuck doing instead of going outside and breaking bones. But he almost made Tony enjoy those things too because he was such a fucking goober about it, all big blue eyes and shiny blond hair and Gee Whizz, Mom, and Apple Pie about everything. Sometimes Tony would find himself wishing the twice-weekly meetings would come sooner, storing away tidbits of information that he thought Steve would find interesting or funny, because Steve didn't tune out while they were talking, he listened, and he talked back like a human being instead of a doctor or adult, even though he was older. He swore, and he laughed at dirty jokes, and mentioned how he'd had a huge crush on Mrs. Hill when he went to school there, and was so fucking decent Tony couldn't help liking him.

That was why he found Steve's number and called him when he woke up covered in a cold sweat, convinced that someone was breaking into the house about to come for him even though Obie was far away. "I-it's just so _stupid_, but I can't help it," he grumbled into the glow of his cell phone. Then, because it was two in the morning and he had to diffuse the attention away from him and his issues for a minute, he asked, "Should I draw a walrus or something?"

Steve snorted, not at all upset that he'd been woken up in the middle of the night. "Maybe a cockatoo," he sleepily mumbled, voice deep and rumbly. Over the phone no one would ever know this guy was on like eight million different meds and had two major surgeries before he was five. At least not until the telltale puff of his inhaler hissed over the phone.

"But seriously, Tony, having bad dreams is completely normal," continued Steve once their sleepy amusement had faded. "I mean, this guy, Obie, this guy you loved and you trusted - maybe even still do love - he betrayed you. Hell, he threatened you, your _life_, your family...if it were me, if I'd gone through _half _the shit you have lately, I'd be shaking in my boots and calling Ma to pray for my soul."

That made Tony laugh, albeit quietly and without much mirth. "Dude, I think you'd call Ma to pray for your soul if you got _laid_."

"Only because getting laid would probably kill me."

Their hushed laughter grew louder and something in Tony's chest, the great, tugging thing like a white-hot circle of electric fire digging right into his sternum, twisted and eased a little bit. He could breathe easier in the tight emptiness of his big useless house that tried to press in on him when he least expected it.

"Have you talked to Bruce, Tony? I can tell he's worried about you. Or your other friend, Thor, I've seen the three of you at McDonald's."

"Yeah, Thor's pretty much always hungry, so we go during study hall."

"During? Tony..."

He rolled over onto his back and grinned at the glowing plastic stars tacked to his ceiling. "Save the lecture, I know, we always go back and study once Thor's had his Big Mac," he assured Steve, who was puffing disapprovingly at him. "You could always come too, you know, if you're close enough to see us anyway."

Despite the friendly banter of only minutes before, Steve sounded stunned. "Really?" he asked.

Why the hell was Tony doing this? He hated people, they were needy and annoying and made him buckle his seat belt like a nerd, not to mention some of the friends he'd had freshman year who were only in it so he'd buy them stuff. Assholes. He smirked at the memory of Coulson pinning one of them for being tardy just last week. At least the specky little gnat was good for something.

"Yes, really," he retorted. "And I'm very selective about my friends, Rogers, you should feel honored."

"Oh, I do," chortled Steve. He chortled, like in that "oh, _you_" way dads did in fifties sitcoms. What a weirdo. "I'll think about it. Now go to sleep, Tony, I'll see you on Wednesday."

His voice came out a lot softer than he intended it to when he replied, "'kay," and he curled onto his side again.

The next time they went to McDonald's, Thor first creating a diversion (one word: turtles) so Coulson would run down the art hallways before they could make their escape, Steve was there too, with a stern look and two apple pies an an ice cream for himself. "You guys should really stop skipping class," he warned them. Then Thor started telling a story about going hunting with his dad and brother up north, and everyone forgot what was being said before. That family was fucking crazy, man.

* * *

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	5. Clint

Christmas came without warning and with very little consideration for Tony's patience. Mom was home, for once. Tony had completely fogged out Thanksgiving. After hearing from one of Mrs. Linwood's other kids that Christmases with her were always just sort of sad and quiet since she could only afford so much, though, Tony decided that it was time to take matters into his own hands.

"She's really nice," the girl who had a thing for horses told him when he cornered her at her locker. Bruce was out sick that day. "I mean, she could have had a comfortable retirement but instead she took in five kids. And, yeah, it's crowded, and holidays are quiet, but it's still a lot better than other homes we've been to."

She shrugged and turned to leave, but Tony grabbed her arm. "Yeah, about that. What happened at Bruce's last place, huh?" he asked.

Shaking her head, the girl pulled her arm apologetically free. "It's not my place to tell you that, I'm sorry," she said. But she didn't sound sorry. There was a hard glint in her eyes that very clearly told Tony to mind his own fucking business. Bruce would probably be getting a concerned talk about "that Stark guy" later as it were. If there was one thing Tony really admired about foster kids, aside from the obvious guts it took to live through hell and still get up in the morning, was that they stuck together, tightly-knit as anything. But that didn't change Tony's mind at all. He let her go and went home that day with a mission.

"Mom, can Bruce come over for Christmas dinner?"

"Who?" asked Mom absently, flitting around looking for a missing file of paperwork.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Bruce, Mom. You met him around, like, Halloween or something."

"Where did I put...? That's nice, dear."

"So can he come to Christmas dinner or what?"

"Oh, sweetie, I'd love to, but I have to run and-"

"_Mom, will you listen to me for two fucking seconds?!_" he yelled.

Sometimes extreme measures had to be taken.

The files hit the floor and Mom jumped half a foot, staring at him with wide eyes. They watched each other for a minute or so, not saying a word, not daring to so much as breathe too loudly, then something broke in Mom's eyes and she wound herself around him in a tight embrace. "Oh...oh, Tony, baby, I'm _sorry. God_, look at me, what am I doing? I've been so preoccupied with Dad and the _damn company_...sweetie, I'm so, so, sorry, I'll do better, I promise."

"It's okay, Mom." The words were falling out even though Tony really wanted to say _Y__ou're fucking right you've been too preoccupied with the company. What are you doing, Mom? You're ignoring your only kid, you didn't even notice the liquor cabinet was broken, you're a fucking zombie._"I know you're busy. It's okay, really."

But she was Mom, and she was trying.

Tony wanted to get Bruce a better cell phone for Christmas, but he practically had to drag the guy to the store and once they got there, Bruce wouldn't so much as go near the high-tech ones Tony had in mind. He just stood in the middle of the store with his eyes shut and arms crossed, probably counting to a hundred in his head to keep from throttling Tony, which, okay, didn't make any sense. "What, do you celebrate Hanukkah or something? I just wanna get you something nice!" he explained when he held up the most expensive phone in the store and Bruce stormed out.

Bruce's weirdly intense eyes pinned him in place on the frosty sidewalk, and that wild, dark, caged thing was back where Tony's friend used to be. "That isn't _nice_, Tony, it's...condescending. It's degrading, and I don't want it," he said, voice loud and shaking. He looked small and fierce in the baggy green coat Thor had passed on to him when he noticed Bruce's had holes, his whole face pinched with barely contained anger.

"But I _want _to-!"

There were two crunching steps in the snow and then Tony was sprawled across the sidewalk like a rag doll abused by a really enthusiastic toddler. Bruce was strong when he was mad. "You think I don't want to?!" he howled over the biting wind. "You think I don't see things I _know_ you'd like and want to give it to you, Tony? You fucking asshole! I can barely afford to get something for Mrs. Linwood, let alone you, or Thor, or my _girlfriend!_ You're so fucking _rich!_" He was panting, barely breathing he was so mad, and maybe Tony just didn't get it but that didn't stop him from standing up again.

"Do you wanna go to the circus?" he shouted back into Bruce's face.

And yeah, that shut him up, though it obviously did nothing for his mood. "_What?_"

"The _fucking circus _is in town. Do you wanna go or not, motherfucker?"

After another moment of silent gaping, Bruce gave him a shove and said, "Fine! God _dammit_..."

Every year around the same time, the circus came to Shield County and set up in the open field out east between the woods and town, capitalizing on families wanting to spend time together without having to talk to one another. Dad used to take them to fulfill his yearly Family Time quota, and now that Tony was annoyed with Bruce but didn't want the little guy out of his sight (having quickly learned that Angry Bruce was only two sashays away from Inconsolably Broken For Days Bruce, and yeah, Tony was not about to let his buddy wallow in that kind of misery alone) it seemed the perfect solution. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee, arms crossed and staring determinedly in opposite directions as music blared and elephants circled the dirt stage.

The circus had sort of lost its appeal since Tony was little. Back when he was so little had had to sit on Dad's shoulders it was like the greatest day of the year, clowns and music and animals and the warmth of both parents sat beside him, usually smiling, no phones in sight, yeah, that was it. That was heaven. Now he was a cynical teenager, and the circus was just an assembly of sad bedraggled animals, music warped off key by ancient speakers, and a strong manure-smell that would stick in his nose for days.

They were silent through the first half of the circus, bored as hell watching elephants walk in circles and then watching horses walk in the opposite direction, while some fatass carnie ringleader yelled "Amazing!" into a megaphone to encourage applause. Then:

"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the Shield County stage for the very first time, the sharpest bow and keenest eyes in the world...Hawkeye, the wonder archer!"

Tony's eyebrows quirked against his permission as a skinny kid with wiry-muscled arms and a bow, wearing a ridiculous purple Robin Hood looking costume, stepped through the flap at the back of the tent. In the corner of Tony's vision, Bruce sat up a little straighter.

"Hawkeye, the wonder archer, will not only be displaying his astounding marksmanship, but he will do it without the benefit of hearing! Our young champion was deaf at birth, but that does not prevent him seeing through eyes in the back of his head! Hawkeye, can you hear me?"

The boy nodded curtly.

"Can you hear the audience cheering for you?"

The audience roared. He smirked and nodded again.

"Hawkeye, kindly remove your hearing aids!"

With two deft flicks of the wrist, the kid's hearing aids dropped uselessly to the dirt. He closed his eyes, clasping both hands around his bow, and waited.

In a really annoying stage-whisper, the ringleader asked through the megaphone - no, really, why bother with a megaphone if you're whispering and the kid's deaf? - "Hawkeye, can you hear me?"

The boy didn't move.

"Audience!"

The audience cheered, and still nothing.

Once there was quiet again Tony stood up and shouted, "_Hey, Katniss, I fucked your mom last night in your bed!_"

Bruce grabbed him and yanked him back down onto the hard bench. "The fuck are you doing?" he hissed, but Tony was gesturing victoriously at Hawkeye, who hadn't so much as twitched.

"Proved that he actually couldn't hear anything, duh."

Acrobatic rigging that had never been used by the circus before slithered down from the top of the tent, and with one arm Hawkeye allowed himself to be hauled all the way to the peak where what looked like the crow's nest from a pirate ship was sitting. For a few moments Hawkeye arranged himself, rather like a bird in its nest, and with the crowd watching enraptured, within a few moments targets started flying through the air. Even at the speed they were going the kid didn't miss a single target, sometimes even hitting two or three with one arrow.

If the crowd had been freaking out then, it was nothing compared to the roar when Hawkeye jumped from the nest, hit four targets at once, and caught himself on the acrobat rigging only a man's height away from the heads of the shrieking audience. Tony squinted at the quiver, more interested in how he kept the arrows from falling out upside-down than he was the act, frowning when the kid just wouldn't hold still long enough. Bruce's eyes were as wide as really wide round things as he watched the archer swing with ease through flips and turns and shot targets that were behind his back. "How'd he know it was there? He can't hear anything!" he asked in awe.

"Bruce, they've probably practiced this a million-"

The smaller boy's calloused hand took Tony's chin and made him look at where the flying disc-like targets were coming from, and _oh_. Well _damn_, because targets were being tossed up into the air by spectators, not other carnies. The ringleader was running around as quickly as his stubby little legs could carry him, handing out target disks to all within reach. No way. Tony elbowed his way to the front of the stands and thrust out an expectant hand. He wasn't about to let this chance pass up- besides, it was his civic duty to try weeding out cons like this; the circus very well could have had plants in the crowd.

Instead of a thin disk, Tony's hand came back with four wooden rings hooked around his fingers, and he grinned wickedly before scurrying back up to Bruce's side and handing him two. They let fly with the rings. Tony threw his low to see what would happen, and Hawkeye shot it through the rim, right into the ground, mid-flip in the air and- "_What the fuck holy shit!_" Tony shrieked, gripping the sides of his head in both hands as the crowd screamed and the ringleader continued singing Hawkeye's praises.

"Would you just look at this young wonder, ladies and gentlemen? Completely deaf in both ears, and he picked up his first bow only half a year ago to the day! Astounding, how the hawk flies! Just wait and see...!"

Tony and Bruce stepped out of the tent at nightfall, and they were so worked up by the Hawkeye's performance that they forgot they'd even fought at all. All according to plan, obviously. They climbed into Tony's car and were halfway to Mrs. Linwood's when he turned onto a side street and stopped. "Dude, let's go back." Bruce was looking at him like he was crazy, and hey, maybe he was. But Tony couldn't get that kid out of his brain. How did a kid learn how to do that? "No, really, let's get Thor and Steve and come back, I want them to see this kid."

"Can't we just bring them back tomorrow to see the show?"

He shook his head. "One night only. Come on! Let's do it! You know what? Fuck you and your opinions, I'm getting Steve and Thor so _ha_."

Bruce looked incredulously around, hands flung out. "Who said I was arguing? God _damn_, you're testy," he grumbled before crossing and arms and slouching back in the passenger seat. For a guy with impeccable manners around adults, Bruce was a master at slouching, almost as good as Tony, he lived and breathed slouching. Like a slouchy, petulant monk.

It was lucky that Shield County was so small because it only took ten minutes to get to Thor's house, and after that only like two seconds to get him in the car, one arm around each of them as he leaned up between their seats. "Brothers! What brings us on an adventure this night?" he asked cheerfully. Loki watched them pull out of the drive from his window, looking sullen.

"We're going to the circus to stalk an archer Tony has a crush on," explained Bruce, and yeah, Tony gave him a smack for that. Don't worry, he kept one hand on the steering wheel at all times, and half a mind on the road too.

Steve took a little more convincing to leave his final project, which was apparently in a very delicate state, but Tony knew how to get him. Intermittently bribing him with McDonald's apple pies and openly screaming, "_STEVE WE'RE GOING TO THE CIRCUS AND YOU'RE COMING WITH US!_" in his face finally did the trick and he climbed into the car beside Thor. Puff, puff. Tony smirked and spun the car in the dust. Puff, puff, _puffpuffpuffpuff_...

So Tony had lied about the circus being in town one night only, but he knew that if he let the matter sit and simmer he wouldn't be able to talk everyone into going with him. The carnies were out in their tents and trailers, setting up for a good old-fashioned...whatever it was circus people did in their off-hours. The Hawkeye kid was sat outside one of the trailers, quiver at his side and making minute adjustments on his bow.

"Hey, you're that kid!" Tony yelled, because he couldn't help himself, because that guy was fucking awesome, so what? Yeah, he was kind of having a fanboy episode, but he was Tony Stark and could do what he wanted.

Eyes flicking up at the teenage billionaire who had planted his ass in the dirt two feet away, the Hawkeye smirked and turned back to his bow. "Are you crazy, or just eccentric?"

"I invented eccentric," replied Tony smoothly, gesturing for everyone else to sit down. "How long have you really been shooting?"

"Tony..." sighed Steve, but he was dropping down to sit in a slapdash little circle with the others. Bruce smacked Tony in the back of the head.

The kid shrugged. "It's okay. Not a lot of people actually show up like this. What's up?" He was staring at their mouths, and after a second Tony realized he didn't have his hearing aids in. "Hey, you know, you look like that guy, the rich one with the guns, like his picture's been all over the news, interrupting my cartoons." He pointed an arrow idly at Tony as he said it, but there wasn't anything accusing about it.

Besides, Tony was too busy gaping that the best archer in the world watched cartoons to actually be offended. "Dude, how old are you, anyway?"

"If the authorities ask, I turned eighteen the day I started performing," shrugged Hawkeye - what the hell _was_ his name? - with another self-assured smirk. "And that's what I'm gonna tell you too, unless you give me a _really _good reason."

"I'm Tony," said Tony.

"That's Bruce, Steve, and Thor," said Tony.

"You do cool shit with arrows," said Tony.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" said Tony.

Finally Bruce snapped and shoved him. "Tony, shut the fuck up!" he snapped.

Thor chuckled to himself. "This quarrel is most amusing."

"_Guys_," interrupted Steve with as much authority he could muster from behind his inhaler. As the eldest, they felt kind of obligated to listen to him and shut up a little bit. Tony kept grumbling, though, because it was _his _idea to talk to the kid anyway. Steve offered out his hand to shake like a proper young gentleman. "It's nice to meet you...?"

Rolling his eyes, the kid very briefly shook Steve's hand. "Clint. And that's all I'm telling you."

"Where are your hearing aids, _Clint?_" asked Tony.

"I took 'em out for the night, so what?" But he was hunching over, getting defensive, only looking up from his bow to watch their mouths move.

"So I don't think someone who was born deaf would have scars around their ears," Tony replied.

Clint froze better than a hawksicle, staring at them, caught, and rose to his feet in one fluid motion. "Listen man, I don't show up in your house and fuck with your life, do I?" he demanded, but with the hand not clutching his bow he was signing against his leg. None of them were adept at sign language, but they had all been forced to learn the alphabet in Kindergarten. Even as he railed at Tony about nosing into his life and his business, and fucking off, his hand spelled _G-E-T-O-U-T-O-F-H-E-R-E _and then he waved at them, looking over his shoulder at some of the older circus people who were watching from the lip of a tent. The scars around his ears were old, but not from-birth old, and Clint couldn't have been more than fifteen.

And oh, fuck, Steve was _mad_. It was the maddest any of them would probably ever see him. Like, he looked on the verge of just picking Clint up, asthma and whatever million other health problems he had, and carrying him to the car slung over his shoulder like a garbage bag (which was really a funny analogy, because Tony was pretty sure he had never seen anyone carry a garbage bag over their shoulder. Like what if it split? Then you'd have shit all over your clothes! But anyway-) as he hissed, "Clint, are you being kept here against your will?"

"Dude, of course not, come on!" Clint shot back, hand spelling out _J-U-S-T-G-O-A-W-A-Y_ on his thigh. "I'm of age, I'm happy, and _you're _crazy, so get lost before I call the elephant tamer to beat all your asses!" Just to make a stronger point he strung an arrow onto his bow, and they decided to play it safe and run back to Tony's car.

Steve was already calling the cops by the time they reached the 'vette, and within an hour the place was swarming with cars and flashing lights and cops who hadn't seen any action since Tony's last party. One guy who looked like Clint but, well, taller, went running off into the woods with Clint screaming his head off after him. The kid himself was taken off in a van to the police station for processing into foster care, and half the circus had to be taken to the next town over for lock-up and questioning. For the night, though, after processing, Clint was taken to the nearest foster home in the area.

Oh, no, not Mrs. Linwood's.

_Principal Fury's_.

Yeah. Crazy shit, right?


	6. Natasha

**Warning for a rather intimate description of minor character death here**

* * *

Clint hated them for a long time. Everything came out about the circus and its underage workers by the New Year (Bruce came to Tony's for Christmas, after all. Score!), including how they'd picked up young runaways and forced them to lie about how old they were, and in one case going so far as to stick hot pokers into a ten-year-old boy's (Identity Redacted) ears to make him deaf, then display him as a tragic hero. He had only just turned fifteen a few months ago.

Not much of a surprise, Bruce's abilities as an orphan-whisperer came in handy; he was the only person who could get the kid to talk, foregoing visits to Tony's house to walk to Principal Fury's in the snow and see him. Even Betty was being neglected, but she complained a lot less than Tony did. Of course, no one complained as much as Tony did, complaining and slouching went hand-in-hand in Tony's little universe, no one was able to keep up.

And yeah, okay, let's talk about Principal Fury while we're at it. Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to let him be a foster parent?! He had an eyepatch and radiated crazy! Then again, the more Tony thought about it the most it almost made sense. Fury didn't have a wife or kids of his own, no one could say what he did with his hours outside of school, and he always made such a big deal out of looking out for kids in trouble. Even if it made him look like the assembler of the Island of Misfit Toys, Fury could almost be said to have a heart. Maybe that's what was behind the eyepatch... Wait, ew, no, never mind.

A month after school was back in session Clint trailed awkwardly after Bruce to their study group meeting. He actually had hearing aids that worked now (because of course the circus wouldn't give him real ones, it would defeat the purpose of his training. Assholes), but he purposefully didn't speak or meet eyes with any of them. He just sat next to Bruce like a lost baby bird. Other than reading newspapers and watching TV when he could, the kid hadn't actually been to school in over five years, and attended classes after school to catch up.

"Hey, Legolas, pass me a pencil, would you?" Tony asked, not even looking up from his book. His open palm got a stab of graphite for the attitude, but looking up and seeing Clint's shit-eating grin, he didn't mind.

One downside of being friends - or trying to be friends - with a runaway was that he was awfully hard to find. Sure made play-dates hard to come by, not to mention it stressed Fury out to no end. After a while, though, they got the hang of Clint's usual haunts and then resorted to just following him around. He didn't like them, exactly, but he liked Bruce and put up with the rest of them accordingly.

What Clint _did_ like was the woods on the outskirts of the county. They weren't very hardy woods, or even all that thick, but they stretched out far. There were rumors - big shocker there, in Shield County of all places - that if a dumbass wandered far back enough into the woods they would find cults or spies or the Amish. No one ever went that far, of course, because they were scared little shits, but sometimes smoke could be seen furling out from the treetops and would stir the rumors up again. Clint quickly found a little nest to call his own (and no, Tony would _not _be stopping with the bird analogies, thanks very much) that they called the Hippie Hole. It was the empty space between two small hills, littered with old tires perfect for sitting on, old homemade beeswax candles, and engravings in the tree trunks from the mid-seventies. It was awesome.

"So Fury's not letting me have my own bow, but he let me join the archery team at school, what kind of bullshit is that?" whined Clint, slowly carving an obscene picture into a trunk with a broken-off arrowhead.

"He doesn't want you shooting holes in the side of his house," Bruce fairly pointed out, only for a carved wooden penis to be thrown at his head.

"I would never hit the house, my aim is perfect, asshat!"

Roaring with laughter, Thor dropped from the branch on which he'd been doing chin-ups and ruffled Clint's hair. "Your aim is true indeed, young archer. Perhaps you could compete in the annual promenade of talent?" he suggested.

Clint stared at him. "Dude, promenade? Are you even _real?_"

"Of course I am! Care to challenge me further?"

Thor waggled his eyebrows to add emphasis, and Clint dove across the space between them to practically climb up the bigger guy like a tree. Tony, Bruce, and Steve idly watched for a few minutes while they wrestled, Steve looking puffy and uncomfortable surrounded by so many plants he was or was very likely allergic to, until Bruce rolled his eyes and leaped into the fray himself. Laughter, grunts, and choking noises were the only sounds in the Hole for quite a while. Tony wondered if it would sound like cheap porn if he shut his eyes, especially with all the noise Thor was making.

With a clatter, Steve's inhaler hit the forest floor as he leaped to his feet. "Guys!" he shouted, and the fight came to a stop. Thor was at the bottom, flat on his back, with the scruff of Bruce's ruined shirt in one hand and Clint trying very hard to get him in a headlock but really just laying on top of him now that Steve had their attention. They followed his stare to the other side of the clearing, the side opposite the town, and found a girl in a tattered blue dress shivering in the gap between two trees. Tony blinked, wondering if he had had too much to drink last night, but everyone else was looking too. It was like The Little Mermaid and Rapunzel had crashed together in one tiny fourteen-year-old girl, with bright red hair that fell tangled to her waist, covered in ashes and trembling at them. Usually Tony would just say 'trembling,' but with the way she was glaring through dead gray eyes, it somehow felt _pointed_.

Clint was the first to unravel himself from the wrestling match. "Hey, are you okay?" he called out.

After a second she mumbled something that sounded like "Pomoigite," turned on her tail, and ran.

And god dammit if they didn't follow Alice down the rabbit hole. In only the four months since Bruce moved to Shield County Tony had done things he never thought it would find himself doing. He was in the woods, for fuck's sake, somewhere he never thought he'd be caught dead, he hadn't had is phone out for half an hour (no use, no wifi), and was enjoying himself around human beings. They ran after the girl for what felt like ages, losing Steve to his inhaler only a dozen meters in or so.

"What did she say?" panted Bruce.

Clint breathlessly shook his head.

Eyeing the dirty wild girl, Tony asked, "Dudes, what if she's one of those kids like on the news? The ones raised by wolves or something? If she was speaking gibberish..."

"Then where'd the dress and walking-on-her-hind-legs come from, dumb shit?" snarled Clint.

At the mouth of another clearing the girl stopped and turned to them, and the tiny gated village burning at her back. "Pomoigite," she repeated, skinny bare legs shaking in the cold.

Tony called the cops. It seemed like he and the cops were really close lately. With lots of convincing from Clint, using a much simpler and easier to understand form of sign language, the girl reluctantly followed them back to the outskirts of the woods, clinging to Clint's hand. She didn't speak a word of English, so when an ambulance tried to take her away she turned and tried to run again, but Clint held on. "Can I go with you?" he asked the paramedics, and since he was the only person who seemed able to communicate with the girl, they let him.

_Dude, she's Russian! Do you speak Russian? _Clint texted Tony later.

_Why would I speak Russian? _replied Tony.

_I dunno, you're rich, rich people speak other languages._

_Try again, bird-brains_.

In fact, no one in Shield County knew Russian, so while she was recovering from smoke inhalation Clint started teaching the girl (whose name they finally figured out was Natasha) sign language. She picked up on it crazy-fast, and soon the police had pieced together what happened. The village in the woods was not a cult, despite popular opinions, nor was it Amish. It was Natasha, her parents, and all her parents' siblings and children living together away from the rest of the world. None of them were legal citizens, and so just lived off the land to avoid being caught. Natasha and the other children had been taught how to fight by her father, who used to be a Soviet spy (no, really, or at least that was how Clint translated it), in case they were ever attacked. She didn't know how the fire started, but the cabins were old and dry and went up quickly. According to the firemen, no one else in the little village survived because they'd all been in the same building.

_Did you ever see a man who looks like me run by? _Clint asked her a week after they found her. She shook her head, and when he wilted slightly touched his hand.

_Can I live with you? _she asked. Clint thought to explain how the foster system worked, but figured that if Fury had pulled strings for him, he could probably pull strings for Natasha too. Besides, he liked her. She was pretty and she seemed to find something worthwhile in him. She taught him some Russian words and smiled at his terrible accent. Natasha never laughed, or at least hadn't since they found her. Even those small, wry, smiles were rare and fleeting.

Before visiting hours ended he told her, _I'll ask_. She smiled again and tugged on the collar of his shirt until he was up on the bed and his shoulder was her pillow. When the nurses came to kick him out he shrugged helplessly, pinned under the sleeping fourteen-year-old who had latched possessively to him as soon as sleep hit.

Natasha started school with them the next week, intentionally placed in classes with Clint so he could translate for her, and soon she was trailing along with him every time they hung out. Tony wasn't really sure if she and Clint were dating, but didn't dare ask in case it got him a black eye. The pair of them were volatile enough, but there was Bruce to worry about too, who seemed to regard Clint and Natasha like younger siblings, and treat anyone who was mean to them just as viciously as Thor did to those who mistreated Loki.

They still went to McDonald's during study hall, but it was a lot harder to sneak past Coulson now that their group was getting bigger. He got them thrown in detention more than once, which was annoying as fuck but Tony couldn't help admiring his balls. Steve had totally given them up as a lost cause, but still reminded them they should go to class, like the good boy scout he was. Mostly Tony thought he showed up for the apple pie, but just scolded them as a reflex by then. Natasha really liked the McNuggets; she'd never had McDonald's - or anything outside the woods - before.

When the snow melted Tony thought he might invite everyone over for a swim in the heated pool - and for once, by 'everyone', Tony meant only five other people - but even as he was pulling up his contact list, Mom came into his room with the phone in her hand and tears in her eyes. "Sweetie, I'm so sorry, but it's time," she told him in a rasping voice, and Tony hadn't seen her looking so present since his little meltdown before Christmas.

"What d'you-?" he started to ask, then the air rushed out of his lungs like he'd been punched in the chest, because _oh_. Jarvis. Tony leaped from his chair so quickly it knocked over into the wall, and it was like the temperature in the room dropped thirty degrees because he was shaking so hard it hurt. He pulled on his coat and hat and scarf and just stood in the middle of his room wondering why he felt so scared.

He looked up at Mom and she rushed in toward him; his arms were already up to wrap around her. "Oh, honey, I know," she sniffed sadly, petting the back of his head. When had she become so small, for Tony to have to curl down around her shoulder? When had he stopped being a kid and become this unfamiliar man, who thought about how he should be comforting his mother while still seeking comfort from her? Drawing back to stroke his cheek, Mom sadly smiled, blinking back tears. Her hand came back wet. Oh. "It's going to be okay, sweetie. But we've gotta go. The nurse says...it could be any time."

Tony didn't ride in the front seat, but curled up in the back staring at his phone while Mom drove to the nursing home across town. It wasn't like anyone knew about this, about Jarvis, because that hadn't been worthy of precious news time, even if it happened right in the middle of the Stark family shitstorm. He hadn't even told Bruce, his first and best friend.

But his phone still lit up. _Betty and I broke up_.

Then Tony couldn't breathe because he was crying like a fucking child. It went on - he allowed it to go on - for the ten minutes it took to get to the nursing home where Jarvis was waiting to die. He'd been in the hospital since the New Year, but they moved him to the nursing home only days ago. It wasn't a place where people went to get better- it was a place people went to die.

Dad was there, sitting by his oldest and most faithful friend, holding his hand. There were tears in his eyes when he looked up and smiled sadly at Tony. God, the room was so oppressive, but they couldn't even raise their voices because of the old woman on the other side of the dividing wall. "Can he hear us?" Tony asked, his voice very small and thick.

"We don't know, buddy," Dad said, looking back down at the thin wrinkled hand closed in his. "Maybe."

So it really didn't matter, then.

They sat for hours around Jarvis, and it was torture. Tony wanted to scream but the quiet pressed in on him from all sides, all sides but one, because even if he was unconscious and on the verge of death Jarvis was making his presence known. Dying isn't fucking soft, it isn't like in the movies, not when you were dying the way Jarvis was. His body was closing down around him, power going out one circuit board at a time, and they could hear it, see it, their engineers' minds soaking in the information with the detachedness of a machinist, because maybe if human beings were machines they could be more easily thrown away when they broke and stopped working.

Jarvis' every breath was a wheeze, sounding loud and painful, sometimes whistling with the pure goddamn effort each breath needed just to come in and made them wonder why his body was even trying anymore. When he breathed out it was quiet, except when it wasn't. When it wasn't, it was a _moan_, an aching plaintive cry that shouldn't have shaken Tony up so much because it _wasn't_ Jarvis anymore, it was _air_ in his throat in his voice box it _wasn't Jarvis_, _Jarvis_ wasn't feeling how hard it was to breathe, _Jarvis_ wasn't in pain no matter how much it _sounded _like he was. But he looked old, and he looked broken, and there was so much fucking wrong with that.

Tony remembered being little, and not really knowing what to make of their housekeeper, who had looked so old to such a small boy but was really two years younger than Daddy. He had been going bald then, but so had Dad, only slower. He had been there when Tony worked so long on his circuit boards and Legos that his knees burned from rubbing his bedroom carpet, ready with band-aids and a glass of chocolate milk. Jarvis had been there when Tony woke up convinced there were monsters under his bed, when he knocked over something expensive and didn't want Mom and Dad to find out, when even Obie was busy, when Tony realized that he liked girls and boys just the same, when no one would listen to him, all the times that Mom or Dad or Obie weren't there Jarvis was, and Tony never really appreciated that. Jarvis had been a voice over the intercom, someone to practice his steel-edged wit on, someone to sigh and grouse and call him sir in that double-sided way that also meant _I love you_, and Tony loved him too but never said it and now he was _leaving_.

"Hello?" Bruce mumbled, dry-mouthed and still half asleep. Almost instantly though, when Tony didn't start talking about his brilliant new idea at a million miles an hour, he was awake and alert. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Hunched over on the bathroom floor, Tony fisted a hand in his hair and held his phone (his best friend, his uncle, his mentor, his buddy) close and cried. And told Bruce that Jarvis had just stopped breathing, those rattling shakes that made his whole chest hurt to hear, that agonizing noise that at some time around dawn made Tony wish and wish and wish _would you please please just die faster and make this hurt go away oh god_, had just _stopped _and that had been the end of it and it was too fucking quiet, pressing in on him from all sides now, and the doctors had confirmed it and Dad had started to cry like a child and needed Mom to hold him and there was no one to hold Tony, because Bruce was his best friend now.

"I just needed to hear you," he said when he finally ran out of any other words. "I just needed to hear you, Bruce."

Bruce was tired, still mussed and warm with sleep at six in the morning and heartbroken in his own right, but he stayed up until Tony felt brave enough to go back to the room with Mom and Dad and the empty machine that used to be Jarvis. "Hey, Tony. I'm here, okay? Come and find me," he reminded Tony before they hung up. Because he was Bruce, and he was Tony's best friend, and Tony just needed to hear him and that was okay sometimes.


	7. Bonus Coulson

**WARNING FOR VIOLENCE IN A SCHOOL**

* * *

Tony Stark was indestructible. Tony Stark was seventeen, and brilliant, and bowed down to no bitch. Tony Stark was a millionaire when he was still in the womb, had unlimited resources and wanted for nothing. He was a bastard with attitude, a force to be reckoned with, who felt so fiercely and yet held himself too tight to give any of it away to prying eyes, and he would never, ever back down from a fight. It wasn't in his nature, and it certainly didn't do him any favors. To be seventeen and brilliant and too stubborn to bow only made it easier for the blows to hit true.

The day Jarvis died Tony ate some unidentifiable drive-thru breakfast and climbed into bed, waking up after school to Bruce crawling in under the covers beside him and everyone else downstairs giving his parents their deepest condolences. They lay there a while, listening to Thor describe the many casseroles his mom had sent along with him, before Bruce asked, "Are you okay?"

The pillow under his cheek was still damp, but he nodded anyway, because even if missing Jarvis was going keep hurting like a bitch later it was muffled by shock and exhaustion for now. They'd gone to the nursing home at ten last night, and didn't leave until seven that morning. When Tony shuffled downstairs on Bruce's heels everyone looked up and smiled hesitantly. Steve was in the corner talking to a very subdued Dad about the grieving process, Thor was putting a casserole in the oven, and Mom was trying very earnestly to have a conversation with Natasha through Clint. But they all looked up when Tony came in. They took notice of him, they actively gave a shit, and it was the most people in one room to be there for Tony - without him breaking valuable public property first - that he had ever seen before.

He was Tony Stark. He was seventeen and brilliant and so acutely unbreakable, but only because he had very good armor protecting him.

That didn't stop people trying to break him, though. Tony wouldn't find out until weeks later that Dad didn't go to Amsterdam to get away from his family, but to negotiate and pay off the group of mercenaries Obie hired to kill Tony.

He found out much sooner that whatever he paid them apparently hadn't been enough.

Tony wanted so bad to call bullshit as soon as the lockdown alarm went off and Steve called for quiet while he turned out the lights. This was a goddamn school, shit like this wasn't supposed to happen, and even as Bruce and Clint and Tasha crouched beside him under the window he could only dismiss their attempts to pacify his anxiety. They didn't have drills after school, but the alarms were always ready when Tony Stark, seventeen and brilliant and a billionaire's son, was in the building.

There was a tap on the window above them, Thor's moonfaced grin shudderingly absent as he boosted his brother up to the window before climbing in. "We were sparring in the yard when Coach Ross commanded we come inside; what has happened?" asked Thor nervously, only to have his thunderous voice shushed. A peppering of gunshots reported from another part of the school. Natasha's hand closed tight over Clint's arm, not with fear but with deadly rage.

"_Where's Stark?_" an unfamiliar male voice echoed through the halls. Tony's heels dug into the tile and he pushed himself back against the wall, eyes bugging right out of his head. Five bodies arranged themselves in front of him, Steve standing at the front of the group with a paint pallet, white plastic smeared with red and blue, still clutched in his hand. "_Tony Stark, he's seventeen and in this school right now, so where is he?_"

"_You can't have him!_" Miss Hill's voice replied, cut off by a single shot.

Tony jerked so far back his head cracked against the wall. They shot Miss Hill. _They shot Miss Hill_. The footsteps thudded nearer, and Bruce's hand closed around Tony's wrist, comforting but not restricting. He looked up and saw that Bruce looked _livid_. He liked Miss Hill just as much as any other healthy male student did, but he was one of those kids that actually liked her as a teacher, too, who stayed after class to talk about books with her. Probably brought her apples or some shit. Tony never did a goddamn thing for her, except stare at her boobs, and there was like a ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent chance she'd just been shot looking out for him. That was so stupid, and reckless, and totally unlike her, she hated Tony, why would she do that?

_You should just let them have me, I'm not worth this trouble, I'm not worth people getting hurt_-

There was a vicious pinch in the flesh of his arm that stopped the terrified words slipping out of Tony's stupid mouth, Bruce glaring daggers at him. Steve, still holding the pallet like a shield, whispered, "You stop that attitude right now, Stark," and Tony didn't know what to do besides shoving his head between his curled knees.

Footsteps thudded closer, Death inched nearer with every fucking second and Tony was waxing poetic about it. He could stop it, all of it, and it would be so easy. Standing would be the greatest effort, then it would be fine, stepping over the still-living bodies of his friends, just a shove to get Steve out of the way, out the door and swallow some lead. The mercenaries would get what they wanted and leave his friends the fuck alone. Sure, Mom would be sad for awhile, but Dad would probably be happy his annoying little shit of a son wasn't around to hog the spotlight anymore. He couldn't think about how Bruce would react or it would totally break his resolve. Or his friends, because he had friends now and they might have actually cared about him if he stuck around much longer.

Then Bruce started sobbing like he could read Tony's mind, clinging to him - no, draping himself over Tony so all he could see was curly brown hair and all he could feel was warm and the frames of his glasses poking him in the eye. Moments later the door burst open, and the rest of the class was in hysterics. Natasha, the tough-as-nails daughter of a Soviet spy, was practically shrieking, while Clint incoherently begged to be spared. Even fucking _Thor _seemed to be worked up. If Tony could have been able to look up, he would have seen that there were no signs of tears in the eyes of any of his friends, or anyone in the room at all.

"Where's Stark?" the leader asked, cocking his weapon and looking warily around at the hysterical schoolchildren.

"Sir, I am a volunteer teacher," replied Steve instantly in his deep, calming voice. "I come here twice a week to teach children with special needs. Even if I did know Tony Stark, he wouldn't be in this classroom. _Please _don't swing your weapon around. You're upsetting them."

Still staring down at the floor between his feet, with Bruce slouched over him (covering him from view), some of the toughest people he'd ever met bawling their eyes out (diverting the shooters' attention), and Steve lying through his teeth (disarming the group as much as possible to avoid a massacre), Tony realized he was best friends with fucking _maniacs_. And geniuses. And he loved them. Steve kept lying, begging them to leave the poor kids in peace, they're damaged enough, and the entire class continued to panic until finally the gunmen left.

It was a long time before Bruce moved enough for Tony to lift his head, and ow, crick in the neck, but everyone was watching him with fear in their eyes that he wanted no part of. He didn't ask for them to lay on the wire for him. They could have handed him over and he would have understood. But they didn't. And Bruce was thumbing real tears away from behind his glasses.

Tony grabbed his face and kissed it. Like, he punched Bruce in the face with his face. Because why the hell not, if he was going to die in this godforsaken school anyway? Might as well make the end mean something. Not to mention, um, yeah, Bruce kissed him back. So _that _was why he and Betty broke up...

After staring breathlessly at Bruce for a few seconds, Tony couldn't help the (totally manly) squeak of "Son of a _bitch_," that came out of his mouth. Bruce grinned shyly. He was so fucking cute, so uncertain and defiantly happy all the time even though his life really sucked, and Tony didn't want to die anymore, not if he hadn't had the chance to learn every single thing in the known universe about fucking puppyface Bruce Banner.

He stood up and almost fell over again like a tit because the circulation to his legs had been cut off. So much for some majesty. "How long do you think it'll take the cops to get here?" he asked, though he was already doing the math in his head. Shield County was small, obviously, and the police were alerted every time the alarms in the school went off, so they could ideally be there within five minutes. Still, a lot of shit could go down in five minutes. "We need to buy time for the cops to get in, maybe even try to neutralize some of those crazy bastards."

"That's not your job, Tony-"

"Isn't it?" Tony snapped back, unsure of whose voice was coming from his mouth and why they sounded so much older than seventeen. "Those idiots are after _me_, people have been hurt because they're keeping between them and _me_, and Miss Hill might be _dead_ for defying them, do you understand that? It's _my_ fault, _I'm _the one who's putting you all in danger. If I just handed myself over when they came in here, they would be gone and everyone would be safe, but I didn't because you're all douchebags. If I can't save everyone in this school putting themselves on the line to keep me alive, then you can be damn sure I'll do whatever it takes to avenge them, and make sure no one else takes responsibility for my ass."

Faster than Tony could see, Clint was standing beside him. "Tasha and I can create a diversion, herd them all back toward the front. Right Tasha?" He signed what he'd just said and she nodded.

"Absolutely n-"

"Yes, and if they can be separated I could tackle one or two!" added Thor, proudly crossing his arms. Loki looked up at him with wide eyes, like he really really wanted to tell Thor how stupid an idea that was, and Steve continued to sputter indignantly.

"You are unsupervised minors!" he finally settled on after what felt like a lifetime of gaping.

Tony crossed his arms. "Then supervise us, asshole! We're going whether you like it or not, so lock the door before you leave and why the hell are you still carrying that stupid palette?"

Almost protectively, Steve hugged the palette to his chest. Still, his inner boy scout prevailed and the stupid reluctant Adult-look on his face was replaced by something even older and more fierce. "Never mind," he dismissed curtly, and tossed his keys to the horse girl from Mrs. Linwood's. "Maybe it'll make a good distraction." He led the way into the hall, holding out an arm to keep them back until he was certain the coast was clear.

They had no sense of organization even after years of being forced to divide into teams and throw shit at each other, but Natasha quickly proved she was more then a big red braid on legs. She smashed up her thrift-store phone against the lockers, did some fucking around with a length of wire Tony forgot was in his pocket, then used the bracelet Clint gave her to strap it to her wrist. With her hiding at a corner, they lured a lone gunman who lost the group around by yelling, "Tony get out of here!" and Tasha took him down with nothing more than the element of surprise and whatever the hell she had on her arm. She picked up his gun and discharged the round with one hand before shouldering it and walking away, braid swinging. Holy shit.

After a few hits and misses they figured there were eight gunmen - or, well, seven now that Natasha had zapped one. Since the school was a circuitous design and there were never after-school activities on the second floor, it was almost easy to pick off the gunmen one by one. Before turning corners Steve would stick his palette around like a white flag, either to signal the coast was clear or _to have a fucking hole shot through it__ holy shit_. They were splattered with shades of red and purple like blood. Tony swallowed to keep from losing his lunch over the image of Steve, the fucking boy scout who always wanted to join the army like his dad, covered in red like a battlefield.

Bruce's hand slipped into his. Tony probably looked like Steve if the stupid scared look on the little guy's dork face had anything to do with it.

They had to run a few times, and of course it was just enough to trigger Steve's asthma because that was their fucking luck. That and he left his inhaler in the classroom. "Get him back to the room," Tony told Thor, who lifted the guy over his shoulder as easily as he might a sack of potatoes.

Clint broke into the gym equipment room and stole a bow and quiver of arrows. The arrows were blunted for obvious reasons, but still packed a punch when shot by probably the best (and hottest, because _wow_) archer in the nation. Bam, bam, bam, three more down, four to go. _Fuck_, even without all the showmanship it was still cool as hell.

"Should we take their guns?" asked Bruce, looking very reluctant to so much as touch the weapons.

Kneeling down to at least take all the ammo out, Tony jerked away and hit the wall, staring at the Stark Industries emblem on the side of their rifles. "Fucking _shit_, Obie," he squeaked, but Clint was already hauling him back up to his feet to get a fucking hold of himself. Now was not the time to freak out. "Split up. I dibs Bruce, Clint and Tasha go that way. If we do it right we can get them to the front doors," he croaked, picking up one of the weapons Dad invented and grabbing Bruce's arm.

Weirdly enough, it was pretty easy to convince guys with guns not to shoot you, when their guns were pointed at the floor and Tony's gun (which was unloaded, yeah, but they didn't have to know that) was aimed at their chests. It took like two minutes to get them walking to the front of the building, weapons and ammo abandoned to an empty locker while Tony stuck the barrel of his useless gun into their backs, only occasionally looking down at the SI emblem. Something felt weird about the whole situation, it had been almost too easy, these whackjobs were mercenaries, they shouldn't have been scared off by a couple kids, even if one did have a big fucking gun.

It all made a lot more sense when the beefhead on the left twisted, jerked the gun out of Tony's hands, and clubbed Bruce with it. Real blood spread on the tile beneath him, and Righty pinned Tony to the wall with a hand around his throat. "You think I don't know when my own gun is loaded, you little shit?" he growled.

"You think I don't know when _my dad's shit's _been tampered with, fucking asshole?" Tony shot back, voice strangled around, well, being strangled. He didn't look at Bruce, couldn't, not when there was so much attention on him now. That was they key, keeping them looking at him, then he would be a smear on the wall and Bruce would go home.

The one with the gun looked up from the handful of rounds he'd been feeding into the weapon. "That's him?" he asked incredulously. "Thought he'd be taller."

"Common mistake," agreed Tony with a jerk of the head. "You gonna put that big shiny gun to good use and leave my buddy alone?"

Lefty cocked his gun with a nasty-ass grin. "It would be my pl-" He was cut off by two wires embedding themselves into his neck and back and pumping him with electricity, hitting the deck and flopping like a trout. The gun discharged and Righty, still working hard at crushing Tony's windpipe, had his foot blown out from under him and they both went crashing to the floor. Tony untangled himself with a few well-aimed kicks and looked up.

A few feet down the hall, taser still aloft, was all five-feet-eight-inches of Phil Coulson. His glasses were still sitting lopsided on his nose, knobby knees knocking together. Somehow Tony thought that when people did shit like that they instantly became cowboys or something.

"_Coulson, what the fuck?_" Tony screeched, unable to do much else when surrounded by unconscious mercenaries moments after coming face-to-face with his own mortality. Jesus.

Pocketing the taser, Coulson's white face flushed red. "D-don't make me regret it, Stark," he said.

Then the police showed up, because wasn't that always how shit like that went down? Tony was covered in blood that wasn't his and his ears were ringing from the gunshot, but he didn't let them put a stupid blanket over him until Bruce was looked at by paramedics. Tasha and Clint had cuts and bruises from a gunman who had refused to go down easy and fought dirty, but they grinned bloodily at Tony when they made it to the front of the school with the unconscious ringleader dragged between them. Miss Hill was found, and she was shot but still alive. Tony's throat felt tight and hot when she staggered out of her room clutching her shoulder, but he almost definitely blamed it on the strangling.

By the time the gunmen were corralled out of the school and the kids were allowed out of lockdown, a perimeter had been set up outside where half of Shield County was waiting for their kids. Coulson was the hero of the hour, the first to leave the school to cheers from relieved neighbors and friends as he held his taser like a trophy. Clint and Tasha followed him out, giving him playful shoves to the shoulder before the three of them walked to Principal Fury's car (Yeah, apparently Fury had been doing the foster parent thing a lot longer than any of them really knew. No wonder Coulson was such a stickler for the rules, though Tony couldn't really hold it against him now).

Thor and Loki jumped over the barriers to be pretty much attacked with love by their parents, hugs and kisses abounding. Steve, still clutching his stupid palette out in front of him, led the rest of the students out, looking winded and nervous with so much responsibility but taking it all in stride. They looked at him like a superhero. Bruce had woken up, and no matter how fine he said he was he still had to be carried out on a stretcher. Pulling up the rear (heh), Tony dazedly wondered who would be picking him up, until he heard one voice roaring up over the noise of the crowd.

"_That's my son! Get out of the way, that's my son!_"

Dad knocked over the barrier, white-faced, even while Mom sobbed and told him to _just wait Howard_, running across the yard of the school with something wild and dark in his eyes. Tony didn't even think, he just held up his arms like he did when he was little and wanted to be carried, and Dad actually _tried_, first just gripping Tony by the sides of his ribs and pinning him in place like he might blow away, and staring at the bruises blooming on his neck. Then he pulled him up as hard as he could, Tony's toes dragging in the gravel but definitely not leaving the ground. They were the same height, now. When had that happened? Giving up on that plan, then, Dad pitched forward and hugged Tony so tight and so fierce that they both fell over into the dust but just kept holding on like their lives depended on it.

"They had Stark weapons, Dad," Tony croaked into Dad's shoulder, and Dad started crying, fingers digging like fishhooks into Tony's back but he didn't mind because the pain meant it was _real_. Dad was saying something about how he was gonna fix it, he was going to track down every illegally-acquired Stark weapon and destroy it, even if it meant going himself, but Tony had other ideas and just hugged him tight.

There wouldn't always be days like this, where everyone lived and there were hugs and declarations of love and all that sissy shit, but Tony was determined to have this one day, this one victory, all to himself.


	8. Epilogue

**WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF PAST ABUSE, SELF-HARM, AND SUICIDE ATTEMPTS**

* * *

Bruce opened the door to his bedroom and found a millionaire lounging on his bed, looking irresistibly rumpled and inexplicably sleepy. "You're lucky David isn't here, he's kind of a snitch," he said with a weary smile, dropping his backpack on the desk before flopping bonelessly down beside him. Tony instantly curled over to drape an arm over him and they breathed in the warm quiet of the afternoon sunshine.

"Not really," replied Tony, mouth already against Bruce's neck. "I told him if he didn't scram, Mrs. Linwood would find out he spends all of his homework time playing Galaga and copies everything from his lab partner."

A soft, fucking adorable smile spread across Bruce's face, and he shut his eyes with his forehead pressed against Tony's. As Tony watched, though, his smile became a thoughtful, melancholy frown making deep lines that shouldn't have existed on a seventeen-year-old's face. Tony raised the hand laying across him to card through those stupid adorable curls and nuzzle his nose against Bruce's, making him smile shakily again.

"What are you thinking about?"

Swallowing hard, Bruce's eyes shut tighter and he shook his head, clutching the nape of Tony's neck like an anchor, and yeah, Tony wanted to rip whoever made Bruce feel like this sometimes - a lot more often than sometimes, really, because the more time Tony spent at Mrs. Linwood's the more he realized that Bruce was sad and angry and so, so broken _all the fucking time_- into tiny little fucking pieces and make sure those tiny little fucking pieces never saw the light of day again.

"Hey, look at me, talk to me. Don't make me start singing Lady GaGa to cheer you up again."

That, at least, got the real smile back as Bruce obviously recalled another low day, where Tony resorted to stripping down to his underwear and dancing in Mrs. Linwood's front yard to Bad Romance until he was in a better mood. The hand at Tony's nape shifted to hold his jaw, his eyes still firmly closed. "I just don't...people I've tried to date before, everyone really, they're all alike, they never treat me the same after I tell them everything. They say they want to know, that it doesn't matter, but once it's all out there...they change their minds really fast, because it scares them or they just aren't prepared for that kind of baggage, and I don't want you to change your mind yet." His voice broke so Tony kissed him until he stopped shaking, both of their hearts thrumming at about a million miles an hour.

Pushing the hair back from Bruce's face, Tony smirked. "Then it's a good thing there's no one like me," he said, forcing himself to be cocksure and arrogant and everything Bruce needed.

And Bruce smiled, pressing the side of his nose against Tony's, not quite kissing but close enough to breathe the same air, and for a long time the were quiet. Bruce had to psych himself up and Tony had to be patient. It was kind of like feeding wild animals, which yeah, okay, you weren't actually supposed to do because that would domesticate them and blah, blah, blah, but since when did Tony Stark follow the rules? Finally Bruce took a deep breath that hinted the coming words, and Tony had to bite his lip to keep from saying "about time!" because that wasn't exactly supportive-boyfriend-talk.

"My dad...hit me. Sometimes. A - a lot of times. I don't know all of the details, but, he, um, he worked with a lot of dangerous things, and was convinced that I. That I was somehow mutated because of all the shit he'd been exposed to. And Mom, she. She hated it. Hated that she couldn't do anything, except when she could, when she would hide me in the closet or under the bed or just step in between him and me. Dad loved her, loved her a lot, didn't want to hurt her, but she had to _learn_, so he'd smack her around but. Less. Than he did me. Until he started drinking, then he just attacked whatever and whomever was nearest.

"And I-I was only a _kid_, you know? I couldn't fight back, I didn't know that it wasn't normal, I didn't know that the other kids at school weren't hiding...b-bruises under their tshirts or-or scars on their backs, I didn't know it could be good, except on days when Dad wasn't around and Mom and I were together and it was _good_, it was _so good_ and I miss her so fucking much _every day_ because she was my _mom_ and-and...when it got to be too much she tried to get us out, we had the c-car packed and ready to go but Daddy woke up and he was so mad, and he grabbed her and they fell again and again and again and then Mom was d-dead, and_Icouldn'tsaveher_-"

He broke off his own voice, white as a sheet with his eyes wide and wet, mouth still gaping open like there were more words that wanted to be said but were held back. Tony's hands were loose around Bruce's wrists, fingers tracing lightly over the scars he'd first seen the day he met Bruce, like if he maybe touched them enough they would be rubbed away like erasers. Bruce was watching him like he might run at any second but that only made Tony hold on even tighter, because _fuck_, Bruce didn't deserve the shitty hand he'd been dealt. Bruce was a genius, and he was so much nicer than any of the smart assholes Tony had ever met, and he didn't let his fear overwhelm him or keep him from being happy in the face of it. But Tony still wanted to protect him, to be _his _armor for a change, to give him the chance to feel things without covering his blind side.

Still, it didn't keep Tony from shifting closer and asking, "What happened at your last home, Bruce?"

Even though the memories were more fresh and flashed in Bruce's eyes, he didn't take as long to answer. "Just the same shit, the...abuse. From both parents, this time," he quietly replied, staring intently at Tony's mouth. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "And I-I...I got low. I didn't see an end, so I...tried to kill myself. The rope snapped before I could suffocate, but I sort of...had a minor stroke. I spent the whole summer and the beginning of the school year in rehab to regain most use of my face and fine motor skills." When Tony's hands tightened around his wrists - _is that why his smile is crooked?_- Bruce pressed their foreheads harder together.

"I'm okay, Tony. I am, it's okay, I'm not...I'm not gonna do that again," Bruce said quickly, crowding close enough for every line of their bodies to touch and kissing every patch of Tony's skin he could reach between words. Tony strung his arms around Bruce, hugging him tight like a fucking boa constrictor, trying not to imagine how low someone had to get to try something like that. Even if he'd been ready to let himself die for his friends, he knew he was too much of a coward to ever do anything like that to himself.

So instead of saying anything Tony sat up, straddled himself across Bruce's hips, and kissed him until they both forgot what day it was. Then they lay side by side on Bruce's bed, hands tangled, hair a mess, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars plastered to the ceiling. "Really, dude?"

Bruce reached over with his free hand and tweaked Tony's nose. "Hypocrite," he retorted, clearly not forgetting that Tony had the same stars on his ceiling, voice a little hoarse but otherwise sounding slow and almost...deeply relieved. With just a little turn Bruce's head was nuzzling lightly against Tony's, and Tony wanted to purr like a cat. He'd never done this before, this whole cuddling thing. It was pretty nice. "So. You haven't run yet."

Tony tightened his hold around Bruce's hand. "Nope. You're stuck with me," he said, popping the P on the end of 'nope' like a champ. Bruce didn't seem to mind in the least, flipping them over so he was on top.

Just before things could get _really_ interesting, a small rock hit Bruce's bedroom window and they both looked up. in time for a second rock to tap against the glass. "The fu-? _No_, Bruce, don't get up!" whined Tony while Bruce disentangled their legs. When Bruce started to laugh, embarrassed, at the window, Tony reluctantly got up to follow him, crying on the inside for the imminent handjobs that had been foiled. Still. Seeing Bruce smile was almost as good. Almost, because it was still crooked in the corner and it made Tony wonder. Seeing what was out there in the grass tipped the scale in their favor, though.

On the lawn below were...well, _everyone_. Steve, Thor, Clint, Natasha, and Coulson, all waiting out in the fading afternoon sunshine. Tony hadn't even realized how dark it was getting in Bruce's room until that moment.

"Friends Stark and Banner, there is a most glorious new amusement down the street yonder!" announced Thor, shielding his eyes from the sharp light. Natasha's braid looked like blood trailing over her shoulder. Steve and Coulson seemed vaguely disapproving, standing toward the back and exchanging long-suffering looks.

With a shove to the bigger guy, Clint added, "He means that the Johnsons have a new cat that's a mean little bastard and we wanna go fuck with it. Also Tasha wants to go to McDonald's. You guys coming or not?"

Tony grinned and turned to his companion. Standing at this angle, Bruce was covered in shadows even while the sunlight reflected off his glasses. He looked sheepish. Probably still a little raw from baring his tortured past or something, so Tony held out his hand while simultaneously opening the window - which was how he'd got in - a little wider. "Are you with me, Banner?" he asked with his slyest grin.

The corner of Bruce's mouth twitched imperceptibly upward. Down in the summery sun their friends, their group, their people, waited patiently, not needing a damn thing but hoping only for their company. Graduation was just around the corner and soon Thor would be playing football for the best college in the country. Hell, the whole wide world was lying in wait at their very fingertips, not always shiny and nice but still theirs for the taking.

Bruce took his hand. "Yeah," he said softly. "I'm with you."

They climbed out from the shadowy bedroom and into the light.


End file.
